CSS Oregon,
a wooden steam gunboat was the only ship of the Confederate States
Navy to be named for the 33rd state. A wooden steamer similar to
California, she was built at New York City in 1846 for the Mobile
Mail Line, 60 percent owned at the end of April 1861 by the Geddes
family of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio, the
remainder by R. A. Heirn and Samuel Wolff of Mobile, Alabama.
Described as having "one deck, one mast, no galleries and a
billethead," she was permanently enrolled (coastwise) at New Orleans
on 20 June 1858. Seized by Louisiana's Gove

rnor Moore sometime in
1861, she was an early and successful blockade runner, apparently
only in the Gulf of Mexico. Under Captain A. P. Boardman she had
somehow contrived to make 92 "entrances and clearances" at blockaded
ports before being picked for arming as a man-of-war; how much of
this coastal service was under Confederate Army auspices is not
altogether clear. Captain A. L. Myers succeeded to her command.

After being converted into a gunboat, Oregon operated in
Mississippi Sound on various assignments. On 13 July 1861 she
steamed in company with Arrow to the vicinity of Ship Island Light
where they vainly attempted to lure USS Massachusetts within range
of shore batteries. During September 1861 she evacuated Confederate
property and troops from Ship Island, Mississippi. When Confederate
forces evacuated New Orleans in April 1862, Oregon was destroyed to
prevent capture.